324 APPENDIX 



Only last year when I suggested taking the advice of a highly 

 trained landscape-gardener, one of the most intelligent women 

 of my acquaintance asked me if "anyone could not plant a 

 tree?" Any one can build a house, but is the result good 

 architecture ? Any one can apply paint to a canvas, but is 

 the result a pleasing picture ? 



Landscape-Gardening is not only one of the noblest of .the 

 fine arts, but in. its perfection it is one of the most difficult. 



When the architect,' the painter, and the sculptor have done 

 their work it is as complete and perfect as the artist can make 

 it. Not so with the landscape-gardener. He must plant with 

 the eye of a prophet, for it requires many years to bring to 

 perfection the picture which he has imagined. He must know 

 the character of every tree and shrub, the size, shape, and color 

 which it will have at maturity. 



If he has designed his landscape with prophetic skill, it will 

 grow in beauty year by year, intensifying the varieties of sur- 

 face, creating vistas in which imagination delights ; the masses 

 of trees and shrubs will have assumed pyramidal form, con- 

 trasting or harmonizing each with the other ; and the nature 

 foliage will have acquired that exquisite blending of tones 

 which is the despair of the painter. 



The ideal landscape-gardener should have a vast range of 

 knowledge. He must be a botanist, and he must know the 

 nature, the habits of growth, of trees, shrubs, and plants, and 

 those which are adapted to each region ; he should know the 

 chemistry of horticulture, and the nature of soils; he should 

 be an engineer, as the basis of his work is the grading and 

 shaping of the earth's surface ; he should have a knowledge of 

 architecture, as his work will often make or mar the work of 

 the architect; and finally he must be an artist to the tips of his 

 fingers ; the more artistic he is the better landscape-gardener 

 he will be. 



